The First Cause

[ERayR]

"God's human brain?" That is a significant expression. Think about what it implies: the ONLY sapient species we know of is us, and that includes anything we've found that predates us. There is this single class of hominids that came along all at once, and we are the only survivor species. If we are the ONLY sapient thinkers, then the Necessary Cause made us like him/her/itself; at least so far as we know. In the thinking department at least that is what sets us apart as unique from other animals. It is a significant uniqueness, not at all the same as comparing number of legs or vertebrae or any other physical traits that differentiate animals. Brain power is totally "other" when we are making comparisons. And ours is so far above the next closest species' as to not even bear comparing. So the evidence says that our "human thinking" is intended to relate back to "God" in this unique, companionship way. "God" is not a homo sapien; that is to say, "God" is not only that; but I believe that "God" manifests this way, for us. And if there are any other sapient beings "out there" that are wildly different physically and mentally from us, then "God" (I am sure) manifests as one them, for them, also....

"God" is not a homo sapien; - Tell me then what is he. It is recorded that he is my "father". I don't know if homo sapien is the right term but I do know he and I are of the same species.

[Calm]

I have always thought it was an interesting line where Satan says....

You might be better off by paraphrasing.....

[mfbukowski]

Before someone nails me further on it, let me say that I believe that we only use a tiny amount of the brain's potential, and that even it's under-utilized potential will be greatly magnified after the resurrection.

If we will have a human body, without missing a "hair of our heads" there is no reason to believe we will not have human organs.

[mfbukowski]

You might be better off by paraphrasing.....

Oh- so that's the way it is, huh?

I put you in my siggy and now you think you can boss me around, or something, huh?

[Calm]

Before someone nails me further on it, let me say that I believe that we only use a tiny amount of the brain's potential, and that even it's under-utilized potential will be greatly magnified after the resurrection.

If we will have a human body, without missing a "hair of our heads" there is no reason to believe we will not have human organs.

I always liked the idea from Hitchhiker's Guide where the white mice were the three dimensional manifestation of hyperintelligent, pandimensional beings.

[Calm]

Oh- so that's the way it is, huh?

I put you in my siggy and now you think you can boss me around, or something, huh?

Mister, UMW RULEZ! (I miss the female devil with the whip.)

[Nathair/|\]

Mister, UMW RULEZ! (I miss the female devil with the whip.)

Found 'er!!

[Calm]

Found 'er!!

Duh..."Show All"....how did I miss that?

[Questing Beast]

First you have to show me there is an "outside of space and time". You are trying to approach infinity/eternity with a finite mindset.

The concept of NOW ("all things are before my face continually"), where everything Exists without any before or after, is easy to hold in your mind. The literal COMPREHENDING of it is impossible for a finite mind: concept is one thing to imagine, comprehension (experience) is a whole 'nuther. Only "God" - the only Existence that there is - can comprehend what is caused to be, all of it, from the cosmic down through the subatomic, EVERY particle of the whole of Existence ("Godself"): not "at the same time", but altogether, "continually": without beginning or end, and "without number" to any finite being within space-time: yet all of creation is "numbered unto God".

If the human mind can conceive of a state of Existence where there is no space-time, then it is reality. The concept forms part of quantum theory. "When time started" is always attached to the Big Bang. The universe is continually expanding into "Nothing". All of this touches on the concept of no space-time.

The fact that we can even frame such a concept into mere words is proof that a finite mind can indeed conceive of such an unlikely thing: and to what purpose? How can evolution possibly be involved here? Such flights of fancy are distracting to survival, not helpful at all....

[Questing Beast]

"God" is not a homo sapien; - Tell me then what is he. It is recorded that he is my "father". I don't know if homo sapien is the right term but I do know he and I are of the same species.

Your own mind can form a much large conceptr for "God in total" than a flesh-encased man, no matter how glorious and powerful. Even if we allow God the Father ultimate manipulative powers to form and undo the entire universe with but a word: yet God the Father remains a mere glorified, finite being: in one place at a time; thinking one thought at a time; bound by space-time himself; incapable of reversing it or manipulating it at all. If you begin to imagine that God the Father has some control over space-time, then you have begun to hold concepts that are at variance, mutually exclusive in fact. This I tried to do for decades: the whole problem centered on Joseph Smith's theology which Mormonism embraces, which does not permit a large enough concept for "God" as an infinite being.

So to believe in the "Mormon God", one must advance beyond the conflicting concepts of physical, finite being, yet not bound by time: and embrace a unified concept that allows God the Father to manifest as one of us, and through Jesus Christ teach us of our relationship to "God"; the very same relationship that Jesus Christ holds as a physical, immortal human male.

We, including Jesus Christ (who the scriptures say is "the Word" that created everything that we see in the world - "the world" including everything surrounding this planet), are finite beings inhabiting space-time. This is "where" all creation (the imagination of "God") manifests. And as human beings we are naturally driven to seek the Cause of our Existence, i.e. our "heavenly parents": because we seek relationship as familiar to us. But there cannot be TWO Necessary Causes: one must of necessity have come up with the other. So there is only ONE Necessary Cause; transcending all our capacity to imagine, infinitely so in fact.

If that concept of a "Father" is too amorphous to satisfy, then downgrading to a more intimate concept/relationship is what "God" allows: thus we have anthropomorphic deities, legions of them in fact, down the ages. If that seems too impersonal, then we have "The One True God", responsible for all the rest, etc. And to monotheists there are no other "gods", only pretenders or even interlopers, led by the "great deceiver".

But I have (fairly recently) come to the conclusion that "God" is far too big to be contained by any and all human constructs for Deity. At best we can only conceive of facets of the whole being that "God" is. The vision of all things, such as the Brother of Jared, and Moses, (et al. the prophets) had, is only recorded as an event that took place; there is no detail possible to set down in writing. We are told that human speech and writing is incapable of transmitting the vision. It is "shut up straightway" and forgotten in detail. This is only logical: a finite mind, temporarily reconnected to "God In Total", and given a view of "all things" (infinity), cannot retain such a total knowledge when disconnected from "God In Total" and returned to solitary finiteness. Only the memory of having seen the vision of "all things" remains, but nothing of the details; which, being infinite, cannot "fit" into a finite mind....

[mfbukowski]

Your own mind can form a much large conceptr for "God in total" than a flesh-encased man, no matter how glorious and powerful. Even if we allow God the Father ultimate manipulative powers to form and undo the entire universe with but a word: yet God the Father remains a mere glorified, finite being: in one place at a time; thinking one thought at a time; bound by space-time himself; incapable of reversing it or manipulating it at all. If you begin to imagine that God the Father has some control over space-time, then you have begun to hold concepts that are at variance, mutually exclusive in fact. This I tried to do for decades: the whole problem centered on Joseph Smith's theology which Mormonism embraces, which does not permit a large enough concept for "God" as an infinite being.

So to believe in the "Mormon God", one must advance beyond the conflicting concepts of physical, finite being, yet not bound by time: and embrace a unified concept that allows God the Father to manifest as one of us, and through Jesus Christ teach us of our relationship to "God"; the very same relationship that Jesus Christ holds as a physical, immortal human male.

We, including Jesus Christ (who the scriptures say is "the Word" that created everything that we see in the world - "the world" including everything surrounding this planet), are finite beings inhabiting space-time. This is "where" all creation (the imagination of "God") manifests. And as human beings we are naturally driven to seek the Cause of our Existence, i.e. our "heavenly parents": because we seek relationship as familiar to us. But there cannot be TWO Necessary Causes: one must of necessity have come up with the other. So there is only ONE Necessary Cause; transcending all our capacity to imagine, infinitely so in fact.

If that concept of a "Father" is too amorphous to satisfy, then downgrading to a more intimate concept/relationship is what "God" allows: thus we have anthropomorphic deities, legions of them in fact, down the ages. If that seems too impersonal, then we have "The One True God", responsible for all the rest, etc. And to monotheists there are no other "gods", only pretenders or even interlopers, led by the "great deceiver".

But I have (fairly recently) come to the conclusion that "God" is far too big to be contained by any and all human constructs for Deity. At best we can only conceive of facets of the whole being that "God" is. The vision of all things, such as the Brother of Jared, and Moses, (et al. the prophets) had, is only recorded as an event that took place; there is no detail possible to set down in writing. We are told that human speech and writing is incapable of transmitting the vision. It is "shut up straightway" and forgotten in detail. This is only logical: a finite mind, temporarily reconnected to "God In Total", and given a view of "all things" (infinity), cannot retain such a total knowledge when disconnected from "God In Total" and returned to solitary finiteness. Only the memory of having seen the vision of "all things" remains, but nothing of the details; which, being infinite, cannot "fit" into a finite mind....

Sounds like some mix of Scholastic Modalism to me.

Read your Aquinas.

That's 800 year old philosophy.

[ERayR]

Your own mind can form a much large conceptr for "God in total" than a flesh-encased man, no matter how glorious and powerful. Even if we allow God the Father ultimate manipulative powers to form and undo the entire universe with but a word: yet God the Father remains a mere glorified, finite being: in one place at a time; thinking one thought at a time; bound by space-time himself; incapable of reversing it or manipulating it at all. If you begin to imagine that God the Father has some control over space-time, then you have begun to hold concepts that are at variance, mutually exclusive in fact. This I tried to do for decades: the whole problem centered on Joseph Smith's theology which Mormonism embraces, which does not permit a large enough concept for "God" as an infinite being.

So to believe in the "Mormon God", one must advance beyond the conflicting concepts of physical, finite being, yet not bound by time: and embrace a unified concept that allows God the Father to manifest as one of us, and through Jesus Christ teach us of our relationship to "God"; the very same relationship that Jesus Christ holds as a physical, immortal human male.

We, including Jesus Christ (who the scriptures say is "the Word" that created everything that we see in the world - "the world" including everything surrounding this planet), are finite beings inhabiting space-time. This is "where" all creation (the imagination of "God") manifests. And as human beings we are naturally driven to seek the Cause of our Existence, i.e. our "heavenly parents": because we seek relationship as familiar to us. But there cannot be TWO Necessary Causes: one must of necessity have come up with the other. So there is only ONE Necessary Cause; transcending all our capacity to imagine, infinitely so in fact.

If that concept of a "Father" is too amorphous to satisfy, then downgrading to a more intimate concept/relationship is what "God" allows: thus we have anthropomorphic deities, legions of them in fact, down the ages. If that seems too impersonal, then we have "The One True God", responsible for all the rest, etc. And to monotheists there are no other "gods", only pretenders or even interlopers, led by the "great deceiver".

But I have (fairly recently) come to the conclusion that "God" is far too big to be contained by any and all human constructs for Deity. At best we can only conceive of facets of the whole being that "God" is. The vision of all things, such as the Brother of Jared, and Moses, (et al. the prophets) had, is only recorded as an event that took place; there is no detail possible to set down in writing. We are told that human speech and writing is incapable of transmitting the vision. It is "shut up straightway" and forgotten in detail. This is only logical: a finite mind, temporarily reconnected to "God In Total", and given a view of "all things" (infinity), cannot retain such a total knowledge when disconnected from "God In Total" and returned to solitary finiteness. Only the memory of having seen the vision of "all things" remains, but nothing of the details; which, being infinite, cannot "fit" into a finite mind....

I would say that you don't have a very good grasp of the Mormon concept of God.

[Questing Beast]

"800 year-old philosophy". Really, what does that have to do with the concepts? I didn't get them from Aquinas or anyone else. As I have tried to make "God the Father" into the being that could account for existence in the first place, the Mormon theology winds up too small.

I have a fine grasp on the "Mormon concept of God". And it means that God the Father did not cause the process by which he became "God"; he is in no way responsible for matter always existing, including our very individual "intelligences". The most that we can accept from "God the Father is organization, not the creation of existence defined by space-time. THAT Necessary Cause is the concept I am pursuing and the one I worship....

[ERayR]

"800 year-old philosophy". Really, what does that have to do with the concepts? I didn't get them from Aquinas or anyone else. As I have tried to make "God the Father" into the being that could account for existence in the first place, the Mormon theology winds up too small.

I have a fine grasp on the "Mormon concept of God". And it means that God the Father did not cause the process by which he became "God"; he is in no way responsible for matter always existing, including our very individual "intelligences". The most that we can accept from "God the Father is organization, not the creation of existence defined by space-time. THAT Necessary Cause is the concept I am pursuing and the one I worship....

Articles of Faith # 11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

Go to it. Worship what you will. Just don't let the smoke get in your eyes.

[mfbukowski]

"800 year-old philosophy". Really, what does that have to do with the concepts? I didn't get them from Aquinas or anyone else. As I have tried to make "God the Father" into the being that could account for existence in the first place, the Mormon theology winds up too small.

Well it means that those concepts have already been discussed for 800 years and there are many arguments against them that you don't know about, I guess. I guess that's cold, but that's the truth. You can hold those concepts but don't seem to be aware of the controversies they have generated.

But that's easily remedied- just do some reading about contemporary Thomists, like this guy, Edward Feser.

Mormons are essentially Process Theists, whereas you are a Thomist (or something close, I think).

In fact reading that article I linked to may clarify the difference between the positions.

[Hughes]

Articles of Faith # 11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

Go to it. Worship what you will. Just don't let the smoke get in your eyes.

So, is this "Almighty God" in your view (LDS) responsible for matter always existing, including our very individual "intelligences"?

[mfbukowski]

So, is this "Almighty God" in your view (LDS) responsible for matter always existing, including our very individual "intelligences"?

You will get various answers to this, and they all center around the definition of "always".

I personally believe that time (for us) began with the big bang- but I also believe that the big bang resulted from pre-existing matter- this theory is known as the "big crunch"- that this universe is cyclical. It expands, then contracts into a black hole, then re-explodes into a new universe.

I think this fits well with a Mormon cosmology.

If you think about it, even you would have to say that God existed "before" time (which in itself doesn't make sense), if he made time.

So what does "always" and "eternity" really mean?

For me, the words "God is eternal" mean that God was in some way responsible for the big bang, and has always existed in our time reference. Yet it could also be true that he had a father, who did as he did in another universe.

So in a sense, there are two time lines- one for God(s) and one for us. This is the meaning of the notion that a "thousand years" is one day for God- it is not literally so as far as being one day equaling a thousand years, the point is that God's time is different from our time.

I hope that helps you understand how our view is probably not that different from your view- it's just that we are thinking about what happened "before time" as we know it- whereas the Bible doesn't even consider that possibility.

But in another sense, I think that matter and intelligence are eternal in the sense of "existing" from one big bang to another.

So intelligences are co-eternal and are on God's time line, as is matter. Those constitute the raw materials out of which universes are made, again, one big bang to one big crunch might represent one "generation" of being God- of an intelligence which has perhaps waited and developed during several cycles, watching and learning from his "elders" how all this is done.

But to us, each cycle has it's own time-line and constitutes (for us) "eternity"

That's why we hear the phrase "from eternity to eternity", and why the Latin phrase "per omnia saecula saeculorum" literally translated, can mean "through all the world of the worlds".

That phrase is often translated just as "forever" without even shedding a glimmer of what it is actually saying.

[Hughes]

You will get various answers to this, and they all center around the definition of "always".

I personally believe that time (for us) began with the big bang- but I also believe that the big bang resulted from pre-existing matter- this theory is known as the "big crunch"- that this universe is cyclical. It expands, then contracts into a black hole, then re-explodes into a new universe.

I think this fits well with a Mormon cosmology.

If you think about it, even you would have to say that God existed "before" time (which in itself doesn't make sense), if he made time.

So what does "always" and "eternity" really mean?

For me, the words "God is eternal" mean that God was in some way responsible for the big bang, and has always existed in our time reference. Yet it could also be true that he had a father, who did as he did in another universe.

So in a sense, there are two time lines- one for God(s) and one for us. This is the meaning of the notion that a "thousand years" is one day for God- it is not literally so as far as being one day equally a thousand years, the point is that God's time is different from our time.

I hope that helps you understand how our view is probably not that different from your view- it's just that we are thinking about what happened "before time" as we know it- whereas the Bible doesn't even consider that possibility.

Since there's no evidence for other Universes I'm really not interested in debating that issue.

I am interested in the Mormon view on this question. I've heard that Matter has "always" existed (feel free to insert the correct and more accurate term) from LDS and I am curious about what that means, theologically.

In other words, how could God be "almighty God" if he isn't responsible for all matter?

[mfbukowski]

Here is a quote from that article I cited from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which might bring some light to this whole subject- in this quote, mentally insert "Mormonism" for "process theism" and "Creedal Christianity" for "traditional theism"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-theism/

Implicit in traditional theism's doctrine of creation are the ideas that God's creative act and God's knowledge of the world are non-temporal. Augustine, for example, in the Confessions (book XI, chapters 13 and 14), considers it nonsensical to ask what God was doing before the creation of the world; God, in creating the universe, brings time—and with it, relations of before and after—into existence; thus, it is no more meaningful to ask what came before the first moment of time than it is to ask what is north of the north pole. In traditional theism, the temporal world is spread out before God who can see it in its entirety from an eternal vantage point, like an observer on a hill viewing travelers in a caravan. As Boethius says in The Consolation of Philosophy (book 5, prose 6), eternity is the complete, simultaneous and perfect possession of everlasting life. Process theism takes a contrary view that time is the process of creation. In other words, the order of beings in time is the process whereby beings are created. For process metaphysics, there is no eternal act of divine creation that fixes the world in existence and there is no eternal perspective from which the universe can be considered a finished product. Furthermore, the “creative advance,” as Whitehead calls the universe, is inherently open-ended and growing, like a line to which tiny segments are continually being added. Where Aquinas could liken God's prescience to a man viewing a caravan of travelers from a high tower, Hartshorne says, “There is not (either now or eternally) a fixed totality of travelers for God to survey, but a new totality each moment” (Hartshorne 1970, 135).

Process theism is critical of the traditional metaphysical question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” In process thought, the proposition, “Something exists,” is a necessary truth (Hartshorne 1971). Insofar as traditional theism maintains the doctrine of the necessary existence of God, it too accepts the necessity of something existing. Therefore, the difference between process theism and traditional theism is not in whether something necessarily exists, but in the nature of the necessarily existent. According to traditional theism, the totality of non-divine entities is a multiplicity in need of grounding in a primordial unifying activity—the “pure act” (actus purus) of existing that is God. Process theism refuses to give a privileged metaphysical status to the one over the many. In Whitehead's words, “The term ‘many’ presupposes the term ‘one,’ and the term ‘one’ presupposes the term ‘many’” (Whitehead 1978, 21). Taking creativity as the category of the ultimate is an attempt to keep the one and the many on equal metaphysical footing by taking reality itself as necessarily social. God, considered as the ultimate reality in any version of process metaphysics, necessarily exists as a social being in dynamic interaction with all non-divine entities

And so here we have the idea that we all as humans interact together as a family, and that the Godhead itself has family-like relationships; we are co-creators with God. These obviously are very Mormon notions, and in fact are the reason (apart from revelation) that I am LDS.

[Vance]

In other words, how could God be "almighty God" if he isn't responsible for all matter?

If He has all available power why wouldn't He be "almighty God"?

[mfbukowski]

Since there's no evidence for other Universes I'm really not interested in debating that issue.

I am interested in the Mormon view on this question. I've heard that Matter has "always" existed (feel free to insert the correct and more accurate term) from LDS and I am curious about what that means, theologically.

In other words, how could God be "almighty God" if he isn't responsible for all matter?

There is no "evidence" for God either.

You either did not read my post or did not understand it.

Is Donald Trump responsible for creation of the Trump Tower even though he did not create the iron ore from which the steel was made?

God has "always" existed- read my post.

[mfbukowski]

Hughes:

Precisely what ability is God lacking in order to qualify as "almighty" in your book?

The ability to create ex nihilo? I hold that that is the same as making a rock so big that he cannot lift it.

Your God can't do that either. Both are contradictions. Something does not come from nothing. Read the Stanford quote.

Reality is social- that means that all we can know is human experience- we all create reality culturally.

If you don't understand that principle, you cannot understand Mormonism, sorry. If you don't understand it, I can't debate it with you; you are stuck in an old paradigm of metaphysics and won't learn about any other way of seeing it, much less able to discuss it.

[mfbukowski]

If He has all available power why wouldn't He be "almighty God"?

Exactly.

He cannot do what cannot be done because it is a contradiction- like making a rock so big he cannot lift it.

Here, from that article, is the contradiction explained:

In the view of process theism, the denial of real relations in God renders classical theism paradoxical to the point of incoherence. According to classical theism, God has perfect knowledge of a contingent and changing world, yet nothing in God could be other than it is. The one condition, however, contradicts the other (cf. Hartshorne 1948, 13-14; Shields 1983; Viney 2007b). If any event is contingent then it could be otherwise—for example, this bird at this place and time is singing rather than sleeping; but if the event could be otherwise, then God's knowledge of the event could be otherwise—knowing this bird at this place and time as singing rather than as sleeping. The contingency implied for God's knowing is not that God might have been ignorant of something but that the thing that God knows might have been different. An infallible knower necessarily knows whatever exists; it does not follow, however, that what exists is necessary unless one adds the premise, taken from classical theism, that nothing in God could be other than it is. Process theism jettisons the premise that there is nothing contingent in God. The only other non-atheistic alternatives, say process theists, are to follow Aristotle and deny that God knows the world or to follow Spinoza and deny that nothing in God or in the world could be other than it is (Hartshorne 1976, 12). What is impossible is a God with no contingent aspects knowing a contingent world.

So the God of Creedal Christianity cannot know the world of change in which we live, much less be what you CALL "almighty".

But he is what I CALL "almighty"- able to do and know all that is knowable and do-able.

[Hughes]

Here is a quote from that article I cited from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which might bring some light to this whole subject- in this quote, mentally insert "Mormonism" for "process theism" and "Creedal Christianity" for "traditional theism"

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-theism/

And so here we have the idea that we all as humans interact together as a family, and that the Godhead itself has family-like relationships; we are co-creators with God. These obviously are very Mormon notions, and in fact are the reason (apart from revelation) that I am LDS.

Thanks for that.

Ok... so it appears to me that you're saying that humans are self-existing equally with God?

[mfbukowski]

If there is anyone left actually reading this thread for content, I would strongly suggest STUDYING that article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Process Theology I have been quoting.

I hadn't discovered it until my conversation with QB a few posts up- but it is an EXCELLENT EXCELLENT summary of the issues philosophically- and summarizes better than I could what I have been studying for 40 years.

Good stuff!!!

Indeed, in my opinion, process theology is what I was studying when I found Mormonism and was the basis of my philosophical understanding which made it clear to me that Mormonism was the perfect unity of all that I believed to be true. To me, this IS all the basis for a future Mormon theology which has yet to be completely worked out, and it's an extremely exciting basis for inquiry for philosophically inclined Mormons.

I know there are already a few of us working in this area. But this article will give anyone interested a tremendous jump-start on the issues.